18 NEED

With her shriek piercing the cave she clutched her mother's leg in fright.

"It's ok my little K'hym, I have you. Nothing can hurt you so long as I'm holding you. Quiet down now my little song." Ma'alefa'ak used his pet name to try and calm her.

In a soft voice cracking in fright "Uncle Ma'alefa'ak, what is happening? I am so hot, and the fire is so scary, I want down please." K'hym cried with tears flowing down her face.

Looking past her uncle, K'hym sees her father and shouts, "Father help us, I don't understand what's happening."

I pound on the shield in anger, "Let them go now, if you hurt them, I will bring you pain unknown in this galaxy brother."

Ma'alefa'ak turns to me, "You be silent, or the consequences will be solely on your head. This is your fault; you can just leave and spare my family this pain."

"Daddy please don't go, I'm scared" K'hym cries.

"I am here little one. Just hold on to your mother, I'm not going anywhere." I shouted.

"Don't look at him little song, look at me. I'm the one keeping you safe right now, I will be your new Dad and we will have such a good life together. Just tell me you love me more than him." Ma'alefa'ak says.

"But your uncle, not Daddy." K'hym says.

"I will be your new Daddy and let you do all the things he wouldn't let you do. I would take so much better care of you. I would never let you be put in danger like he did. This is his fault, but I can save you, just call me Daddy." Ma'alefa'ak urged.

"But daddy loves me the most, except for maybe Mommy. Why would I change him?" K'hym innocently asks.

Ma'alefa'ak shouts, "NO, you are too young to understand. I love you MORE than him, you will come to accept that in time."

His shout made K'hym cry more and the sound of it was enough to wake M'yri'ah from the last of her slumber.

"Ma'alefa'ak, what is going on here, release us this instant." M'yri'ah demanded.

"No, my love, first you will accept me as your mate and convince K'hym that I am better than J'onn." Ma'alefa'ak says.

"J'onn is my mate and K'hym's father, nothing will ever change that." After saying this I see a look of concentration come over her.

First surprise and then a little fear flashed through her eyes. Looking around the cave she spots me and shouts. "J'onn, I can't use my powers. I don't know if it's the heat or something else but."

"SHUT UP and address me, I AM YOUR MATE NOW." Ma'alefa'ak screams.

"Brother, let them go. We can work this out, just bring them to safety. PLEASE" I Beg of him.

Looking at the only other person there I say "Pa'rodi'n, please help them. Don't let him hurt my family, I'll do anything!"

Lowering my family closer to the lava flow, he shouts. "I will not say it again J'onn be silent, or they will die!!!"

Seeing Pa'rodi'n not respond in any way I felt hope crumble and I started to slip into madness. My only hope now lay in my brother coming to his senses. I pound and pound on the shield blocking me, just to feel the pain.

"You see this M'yri'ah, I am better than J'onn, he is nothing compared to me and my love for you and K'hym. Pledge your love to me and I will send J'onn through the portal never to return and trouble us again." Ma'alefa'ak says.

"Very well Ma'alefa'ak, I will accept you as my mate just let K'hym go. Remove her from this danger and I will go with you." M'yri'ah relents in a soft voice.

After a moment Ma'alefa'ak replies, "No! I can see in your mind that you just want to save your daughter M'yri'ah, you have yet to accept me."

In desperation I shout, "Ma'alefa'ak I will go through the portal willingly if you promise to leave my family in safety. Give them time and they will forget me, then perhaps they will accept you."

As he turns thoughtful for a few minutes, I am hopeful that he will accept.

"No, they must accept me, and you will see it so there will never be a doubt that I am the better Martian." Ma'alefa'ak says.

With tears streaming down her face M'yri'ah takes a long look at J'onn and says, "I am sooo sorry J'onn and I hope eventually you can forgive me."

Ma'alefa'ak begins grinning knowing that he has won and proven he is the better.

M'yri'ah clutches her daughter in her arms and says "Ma'alefa'ak, knowing that I cannot hide my thoughts from you without you being aware, I would, no, I COULD never truly love you. Even if you sent J'onn away I would think only of him. If I am with you, I will only be able to look upon you as a rapist and murderer, for whether it be by fire or other means you have surely killed me and K'hym today."

Ma'alefa'ak shrieks, "Then on your life fall the consequences, I gave you a chance to live!!!"

J'onn doesn't wait to see his mate and child fall, he phases as fast as he can into the wall to enter the room only to find that the shield extends even there. He knows that only lava flows below the ground but in his madness, he doesn't care, he sinks down as fast as he can. The gods must have been looking out for him as he went into an air pocket that he was able to survive and move far enough forward that he came back up into the room his skin smoldering.

A part of J'onn wished that he would have died when he went underground. Then he wouldn't see the forms of his Mate and child as they wailed out in pain from the fire consuming them. All coherent thought was lost in that moment, no words no feelings. Everything just ran together, and it became a need, a single solitary NEED to make the one responsible HURT.

The memory faded and I looked upon J'onn sitting in the chair in my room.

It felt like years to me, I knew it wasn't, but such an experience should take years just to begin to understand the emotions in that memory. Unashamed tears fell down my face, I felt all the pain in all my life didn't amount to a thimble full of what the being in front of me felt in a single day.

Morph for the first time ever left my body fully and wrapped around J'onn J'onzz's neck and cried like a broken-hearted child.

Bemused, J'onn just patted the little guy as if to comfort him.

"Later I learned what happened next. In my rage I was able to ignore the damage the lava and heat had caused, and I proceeded to beat Ma'alefa'ak mercilessly. I didn't appear to want to kill him, but I did everything I could to cause him pain. Like a Martian possessed I tore him to shreds in total silence."

"I was told it was all the more frightening because I didn't say anything, I didn't express any emotion other than calmly tearing my brother apart and throwing those bits and pieces into the lava where my family fell. I only paused when he screamed and waited for him to calm down before beginning again." J'onn said.

"I must have had enough because I finally tore his heart from his body and tossed it into the lava. With his last breath Ma'alefa'ak could only have attacked my unprotected mind through our shared link and shattered my psyche that was fragile already from the shock of the day."

"As I lay there, alive but mentally broken, Pa'rodi'n entered my mind. While he wasn't a good guy, he wasn't evil, he just wanted to work on his ideas. He stopped my mind from collapsing any further and gave me new memories to act as a sort of bandage until my mind could repair itself."

"He made me think that my brother had created a plague that killed all life on M'arzz with the final two dying being my mate and child. I only survived because I shared a genetic immunity with my brother who was killed by execution before the last of the Martians died."

"Furthermore, he made my travel through the portal the fault of whatever was on the other side. Pa'rodi'n just wanted the readings of me entering to support his theory and if I died it would be no loss to him." J'onn spoke in a calm voice as he continued to tell his tale.

"I spent years here on Earth thinking I was the last Martian but eventually I caught myself doing odd things like sending the TV signals towards M'arzz or staring out the Watchtower windows with the urge to go back and see what remained."

"After a fight that caused damage to my psyche again, I started getting my true memories back and returned to M'arzz. It was there that I confronted Pa'rodi'n who was incarcerated again for illegal experimentation and got the full story of what happened after I killed Ma'alefa'ak." J'onn finished.

I asked "Why did you come back then? You obviously have family there if M'gann is truly your niece."

J'onn responded "Yes, I do have my younger sister there and many nieces and nephews also. But all I can think when I am there is that my mate and child are not there. I have also built strong bonds here and by doing so I can further help M'arzz if there is trouble."

Standing up J'onn handed Morph to me and says, "I believe this is a good time to part for the night. I have comm duty shortly and I'm sure you would like to rest. I will find you in the morning and we can look at what Dr Nelson has discovered. Then perhaps we can start to test and explore your power young Gar. Have a good sleep cycle."